Customer service call centers receive a large number of calls related to unrecognized account transactions descriptions. In a recent survey, approximately 10% of calls were inquiries directed to clarifications of such descriptions. The cryptic credit, card, checking or savings account transaction descriptions may include those made as a result of automatic electronic withdrawals (ACH) and credit or debit card purchases.
A reason for the cryptic descriptions is that there are no transaction description standardization and compliance requirements within NACHA (The Electronic Payments Association) and Credit Card Association (MasterCard/Visa/American Express) processing rules. As such, the ACH processors, or credit and debit card merchants are free to choose any description deemed acceptable and often choose abbreviations and codes meaningful to them instead of the customer. In addition, since these are free-form text fields passing through multiple networks and processing systems, a systematic attempt to translate unrecognizable descriptions to more customer recognizable terminology would be very complex, problematic and costly to operate.